


Even if Victory Isn't Written in our Stars

by eudaimon



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:38:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie spends a lot of time thinking about the end of the world; sometimes, it just feels like a relief to think about something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even if Victory Isn't Written in our Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_am_girlfriday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_girlfriday/gifts).



> I was so excited to get a chance to write this for you for this Yuletide! I am thoroughly in love with the show (which probably shows in my tendency to write loving descriptions of Ichabod's face).
> 
> Hopefully, you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
> Happy Yuletide ♥

The way Abbie sees it, the end's going to come one way or another - maybe next week, maybe a million years from now. It's going to happen eventually, no matter how hard they fight. Either way, there's no point in sitting around waiting for it - life's got to find a way to happen. Sometimes, they've got to let themselves act like normal people. As normal as they can be, given the circumstances.

She's started to keep track of beginnings. 

Like the first time Ichabod orders his own coffee at Starbucks. He gets confused by 'venti' this and 'mocha' that; she watches him get flustered and, eventually, she steps in, touching his elbow to let him know that there she's there.

"He'll have a Venti filter coffee, no extra anything," she says and is rewarded by a small, grateful smile.  
"My thanks, Lieutenant," he says, with the tiniest dip of his head.

Something in Abbie melts, just a little bit. Since Luke (which hurt more than she let on), Abbie's been contriving to make herself as hard as stone, leaving no cracks. It's a process that started with Jennie, she supposes; some things hurt so badly that you'd go through anything, _do_ anything, to avoid feeling them again.

But that kind of reasoning just doesn't seem to cut it where Ichabod Crane is concerned. Not when he's so confused by everything (so endearing in that confusion), so clever, so sweet, so goddamned _handsome_. Abbie's found that she can distract herself by focusing on him - the firsts, the little surprises and discovered passions. _We should talk about books_ , he says. He looks at her in a very particular way. She notices it most when they're alone.

Like right now.

In the cabin, she lies on the bed and watches as he leans over the basin to shave. He's stripped to the waist, his hair caught back at the nape of his neck. Growing up where she did, Abbie has very little experience of men like him. She finds herself distracted by the knobbled line of his spine under pale skin, the dip at the bare of his back, shadowed by the waistband of his pants. He has fearful scars, but that makes sense - with all of the weight of his history, it wouldn't make sense for him to be flawless, would it? He wasn't exactly newborn when he crawled out of the earth. She sort of likes that there's everything past there, written on the skin.

The light in the cabin is dim, the air warm and the only real sound is the scrape of the razor over Ichabod's stubbled skin. Abbie lies there, trying to resist the inevitable, but she can only hold herself back for so long. She gets up, barefoot, and crosses to him, wraps her arms around his slender waist and leans her cheek against the warm skin of his back. Her fingers meet and knit across his belly. The feel of the smooth, flat muscles under her palms make her shiver.

"Hello there," he says, and she can't see his face, but she can hear the amusement in his voice.  
"Hi."  
"Little close, aren't we?" he says, and she hears the soft scrape as he goes back to shaving; the beard stays, always, but Abbie appreciates how neat he strives to keep it. Standing pressed against him as she is, she takes care not to knock him as he works with the razor. She doesn't know how to explain to him that there is comfort in being touched, in being touched by _him_. Right now, he might be the only person in the whole world who understands what she's feeling (Jennie and the Captain get a bit of it, sure, but they're not _in_ not, not linked in by the heart, and that's powerful too).

"Come on," she says. "Come to bed, okay? Let's talk about books."

So, in her head, there's this catalogue of firsts. The first time she saw him in modern clothes: a button-down shirt, jeans. He'd seemed...wrong, somehow. Uncomfortable. From then on, it had been dress pants and vests which, somehow, seemed more fitting. He still had a tendency towards sage green, which suited him. The first time they watched a movie together and the child-like fascination on his face as his eyes flickered to follow the movement on the screen. Ice-cream. Churros. Popping candy. William Burroughs. Walt Whitman. The first time he kissed her. The first time she saw him naked.

Firsts. Even if they might be close to the end.

Before he lies down, he takes the time to light candles. He's said it before - that he prefers candlelight - and it suits him, the way it shines on the delicate lines of his profile, the tumble of his untied hair. When he's done, he stops, looks at her. She's not his wife, could never be Katrina, and she knows that. Maybe this won't ever be love - but he has lost more than anyone ever deserves to and Abbie's lost too so maybe, if they end up taking some comfort with each other, that's okay? The Universe might allow it. Sometimes, he needs to talk about Katrina, and she doesn't mind that. Sometimes, he just needs to be close.

She doesn't need anything more than she already has.

He lifts the sheet and slips into bed behind her. She's rolled onto her side and, lying down, his arm around her waist, he doesn't feel so ridiculously tall. What he feels is warm and solid, an immovable object behind her. For an hour or two, in the flickering, shifting light, she can pretend that the world can't touch either of them.

On his night-stand, there's a pile of books that he's clearly been reading - the pages bristle with torn paper serving as markers. He's reading _The Sound and the Fury_ , _A Call to Arms_ , _To Kill a Mockingbird_. There's a volume of poetry by Ezra Pound.

"Anything sticking with you?" she asks, reaching out to trail her finger against the spine of the book.  
"Let me see," he murmurs, mouth close to her ear. "And the days are not full enough, and the nights are not full enough." He presses a kiss to the skin behind her ear  
"I don't know that one," she says, smiling "I don't remember any of his."  
"In another one, he compares a woman to a sargasso sea. The sea itself is covered in sea-weed. Unknowable and unreadable but, if you can slip below the surface, it's so clear that you can see for miles. It is, I believe, a homily on what it feels like to really _know_ a person. But I'm merely a soldier, so it is entirely possible that I misinterpret."

She doesn't care. She just likes listening to him talk.

"What about Faulkner?" she asks. "You got anything from him?"  
"The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.” 

That one makes her laugh. He always knows how to. Her hand slides over his, threading their fingers together again. She'd told him to embrace what he had in front of him, hadn't she? It's no surprise when his hand traces higher, covering one of her breasts. With only the thin fabric of her tank-top to separate them, she's intensely aware of the warmth of his skin, the very slight roughness of his palm. He is, it strikes her, a creature built and shaped by the life that he's lift. He was a teacher but it's the soldier in him that's closer to the surface. His hands have calluses. There's the scars. But he always makes such an effort to be gentle.

And she appreciates it. It's a hard life when you're living it.

"Good advice," she says. "Don't talk."

Slowly, she shifts in his arms. He lets her settle herself before he bends his head to kiss her.

"Abbie," he murmurs. "If I may…"  
It's not a first, but she makes a mental note of it anyway. It's still so rare, even now, even with this.

He slips out of his pants, silhouetted against the soft light. Abbie's aware that, usually, you might get used to seeing someone naked, but Ichabod is so beautiful and the lines on what they are to each other is so blurred that every single time feels like a first.

She puts her hands out to him, pulls him in close, closes her eyes against the prickle of tears. 

"Abbie? What's wrong?"  
"Nothing," she says, shaking her head as she strips out of her own clothes. "Don't. Just..."

He nods.  
If she knew nothing else about him, she'd love him for not making her say any more than that. 

Once he's inside her, he moves carefully, goes gently. She runs her hands over the planes of his shoulders, the raised scar across his chest. She traces his cheekbones and the straight line of his nose, the curve of his bottom lip. Smooths his beard with her palms. He turns his head and kisses her fingers. She drags her nails against his skin, one hand on his ass to pull him in closer, in tighter. Sometimes, it feels like he's literally the only thing that she has to believe in.

She touches him like she wants to learn him by heart.

Afterwards, they're both sheened with sweat and breathless. It feels good, though. Feels like confirmation that, for now at least, they're both alive and still kicking. It's life affirming, really. It's comforting.

"A penny for your thoughts?" he asks, settling on his back as Abbie slips out of bed as naked as the day she was born. A week or so ago, she'd bought an iPod dock. It's slim and black and, honestly, she's not sure that Ichabod's actually noticed that it's there. After a moment's hesitation, she chooses U2, leaves it playing softly through the speakers. 

He lifts the sheet for her as she climbs back into bed, wraps his arms around her and pulls her in close against her chest. She lets herself slip into a doze, idly stirring her fingers through the hair on his chest. She felt warm, comfortable, safe.

Through the speakers, Bono was singing about the end of the world.  
Right then, it felt like they could put it off for a while - if only for the night.


End file.
